Thursday, January 1, 2009

First Night in the Zoo City

The first highlight of First Night was hearing Dave Thomas reading his poetry at the Dana Gallery. I had greeted him often on Higgins, but didn't know his name until I saw him with his Festival of the Book name tag. The gallery talks at Dana are always exceptional. I bought Dave's book, Buck's Last Wreck, an original 1996 print with the original low price, and he signed it. He reminds me of Gary Snyder, and, indeed, Dave said Gary inspired him.

The Festival of the Book was another well-planned Missoula event. I have some images of other Montana writers I captured, which should be on this site soon.
I enjoy Tom and the Tomatoes. To see them during two other events, look for that name among the sets on the flickr archive. There's also a set, which matches the title of this post. There you will find more photos of my three favorites from First Night. This feisty group was the second.





Thomas Pendarvis and March of the Black Queen jump started the new year. That makes my favorite three, in chronological order.

I saw Bethany, another graduate of Good Neighbor Policy. I had just missed hearing one of her new bands, Pillar Saints. She said the other band, Wartime Blues, would be playing the Badlander, Tuesday, January 13, 2009. There is a set of Wartime Blues on the flickr archive.

Missoula events.net is the place to look for up to the minute action in zoo city. KBGA is the hip campus station. I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to find out there was more than the NPR station on campus.


1 comment: